With that coat and tie, along with the watch on my wrist, no one gave me a hard time anymore.
Thinking about it now, the fact that Zhang Mingsheng took off his clothes and gave them to me had likely already spread discreetly through half the ballroom.
They had always looked down on low-level officers like us, and many people at the banquet were even involved in that smuggling case.
Yet Zhang Mingsheng gave me a hand. He always spoke with a mix of truth and lies, but his desire for everyone in the hall to drop dead was probably real.
Inside the hall, the light from the massive, glittering crystal chandeliers was so intense it seemed almost to burn against the skin, bathing every face in a radiant glow. The jewels adorning them gleamed like translucent minerals blooming out of flesh-toned silk.
There were people everywhere, and a multitude of overlapping scents filled the air. Waiters threaded through the crowd carrying trays of wine, while the long tables were so densely covered with exquisite arrangements that it was impossible to tell whether they were works of art or dishes meant to be eaten.
There were even more decorations whose names I didn’t know but instinctively felt were precious; that ignorance of what they were, and of the value I couldn’t even grasp, only made me feel more unsettled. I thought of my two colleagues who died in the line of duty during the smuggling case; their compensation wouldn’t even cover the fraction of a single ivory tusk.
Walking up the stairs, I spotted Li Yi in the corner of the landing. He had shed his usual carefree demeanor, replaced by a sharp, serious expression; he looked genuinely striking when leaning against the wall in the shadows with a glass of champagne in hand.
In just twenty minutes, several guests walked over to strike up a conversation. Before they could even finish introducing themselves, Li Yi pulled his ID from his jacket and flashed it. Their expressions changed instantly as they hurried away.
I walked past and patted Li Yi on the shoulder.
Li Yi wasn’t startled; he took a sip of his drink with his eyes still fixed on the crowd. “I saw you a while ago. I was wondering why you hadn’t come over; turns out you were trying to sneak up on me. Nice clothes, where’d you get them?”
I subconsciously looked down at my suit jacket. The tiny wrinkle left behind after removing the brooch had vanished like a tide receding back into the sea.
“I met someone a bit strange.” I spoke.
Li Yi mocked himself. “The two of us are the ones who stand out as the ‘strangest’ here. Being a cop isn’t exactly as respectable as being some rich man’s illegitimate child.”
I laughed and said, “Can’t be helped. In this world, a good man doesn’t become an officer, after all.”
The actual words didn’t matter; as long as I was willing to smile and offer some self-deprecating or teasing remarks, Li Yi’s mood would quickly brighten. This method had worked from the time he was eighteen until now, at twenty-five.
He finally turned his head to talk to me. With a casual glance, he spotted the watch on my wrist.
“He gives you a suit and a watch, and the only adjective you have for him is ‘strange’?” Li Yi stared at me intently, his words heavy with implication.
I understood what he meant. I didn’t think that man viewed me as a target for a fling; we were just passing strangers, and I didn’t want to assume the worst of people. But Li Yi had always been protective of me, feeling I was too easily deceived. Besides, I was a police officer; I really shouldn’t have been accepting things from strangers so casually.
Belatedly, I felt a pang of regret.
“Officer Yu, sometimes you really need to have a little self-awareness,” Li Yi said, casually placing his glass onto a passing waiter’s tray before reaching out with hands calloused from firing guns. He was a shooting enthusiast and a member of one of the most famous shooting clubs in Hong Kong.
He took hold of my wrist, intending to unbuckle the watch for me.
“What’s his name?”
I stood there obediently as he took off the watch. “I don’t know, I only remember he seemed to be called… Mingsheng.”
“Mingsheng?” Li Yi looked up, staring straight at me.
Li Yi didn’t ask anything else. He picked up the watch as if he were holding a piece of bloody animal entrails that he utterly loathed. He called back the waiter from a moment ago. With a ‘clink, the watch dropped onto the tray.
Li Yi said, “Young Master Zhang lost his watch. My friend happened to find it and hopes it can be returned to him.”
“Young Master Zhang?” The waiter asked, somewhat surprised.
“How many ‘Young Masters’ does your Zhang family have?” Li Yi posed the question slowly while maintaining his air of indifference.
“Naturally…” The waiter’s expression shifted. He lowered his head cautiously, his voice firm. “There is only one: Young Master Mingsheng.”
That man was Zhang Mingsheng.
The only grandson of Zhang Yaonian, widely known across Hong Kong for his notoriously rebellious nature.
No wonder the name had sounded familiar. Once the surname was mentioned, a series of headlines immediately flashed through my mind. Only these two men were left in the Zhang family now. Though people often spoke of the bond between grandparents and grandchildren, Zhang Mingsheng and his grandfather had long since reached a state of open hostility.
What exactly was the reason that caused this pair of grandfather and grandson, who only had each other, to turn against one another?
Unconsciously, I thought of that face in the moonlight again.
An ancient clock began to chime; it was likely already ten o’clock.
I instinctively looked toward the source of the sound.
Suddenly, I heard a ‘click’, accompanied by the flare of a camera flash that left a patch of bright white in my peripheral vision.
A boy was standing about ten paces away from Li Yi and me. He was dressed in a middle-school uniform with calf socks and leather shoes, his sharp-chinned face partially concealed behind a camera.
He had just taken a photo of Li Yi and me.
Li Yi beckoned for him to come over.
The boy showed no fear, walking calmly up to us.
He and Li Yi were truly well matched in that regard; he had taken our photo without permission, and Li Yi, without a word of consent, snatched the camera straight from his hands. After pulling up the image, Li Yi didn’t immediately delete it. He stared at it for a few seconds before signaling me with his eyes. So, I leaned in too.
The composition was excellent, and the lighting was also perfect. Against the backdrop of the red carpet and ornate wallpaper, Li Yi and I stood facing each other but slightly offset. I was looking elsewhere, and he was following my gaze, so both of our heads were turned. Li Yi even had his hand in his pocket. It was a good photo; if I weren’t in it, I might have even thought it was a movie still.
Li Yi couldn’t bring himself to delete it for a long while. He said to the boy, “No matter how good the shot is, that doesn’t give you the right to just take our picture whenever you want.”
The boy was in the middle of a voice crack; his voice sounded deep and raspy, a sharp contrast to his delicate features. “Sorry, sorry! It’s just that a good view shouldn’t be wasted!”
Li Yi laughed upon hearing this. Although the kid was putting on an adult persona, he wasn’t exactly unlikable. “How do I know you won’t use this photo to win some competition prize money?”
“My last name is Song.” The boy said with a grimace.
Li Yi and I exchanged a smile. With the surname Song, he was undoubtedly wealthier than anyone named Li or Yu. So, he was a child of the Song family, no wonder he could roam everywhere with a camera in hand.
“Give me your address, I’ll develop the photo and mail it to you, okay?” The boy was very enthusiastic.
Before I could respond, Li Yi spoke first. “Sure, just send it to the police station. Address it to Officer Li and Officer Yu.”
As he said, “Officer Li and Officer Yu.” He pointed at himself and then at me.
The boy frowned, snatched his camera back, muttering “Crazy,” before turning and running off. I hadn’t even lifted a hand to stop him.
“Hey! Kid! If you run that fast, you’ll trip in a second! Remember to delete the photo!” Li Yi shouted at his retreating back.
I patted him reassuringly. “It’s just a photo. It’s not like we’re undercover.”
Li Yi said, “It wouldn’t matter even if we were. If the day ever comes when your files are wiped clean, I’ll have a tin box of photos to prove you really were a cop.”
“I knew you had taken more than one photo of me.”
During one training exercise, I was hit by a simulated round and “killed” on the spot, only for Li Yi to secretly take a photo of it.
Facing my interrogation, Li Yi answered with grand dignity, “That wasn’t a secret photo; it was a very meaningful keepsake.”
“I was lying there all sprawled out and dead. What’s meaningful about that?”
Li Yi grew solemn, “Sir, whether it’s life or death, as long as we give it our all, it has meaning.”
I didn’t fall for his act and shoved him immediately. He instantly dropped the facade and grinned, “But seriously, Senior, you really don’t know how to play dead.”
I promptly punched him in the shoulder. He pretended it hurt, clutching his shoulder and doubling over with a grimace.
And so, we played and joked around until, in the blink of an eye, it was eleven o’clock.
The Zhang family villa was situated in an excellent location. Going up one more floor, one could see the nearby verdant mountains; because they were far away, they were perfectly framed by the window. When the bells rang out once more, magnificent fireworks burst up from the mountains, accompanied by sharp, whistling cries. I had seen sunrises and sunsets before, but never anything like this; such a breathtaking expanse of glittering stars. Purple, blue, orange, red; they shot upward and unfurled, then suddenly plunged back down, so vast and brilliant they lit up half the night sky and dyed the clouds in shifting colors. Everyone was staring out the windows, their faces shifting through different hues.
I looked up, suddenly feeling my chest expand with a sense of breadth and ease, accompanied by an indescribable feeling in my heart.
He hadn’t broken his promise, and I hadn’t missed it either.
Much later, I discovered that Keke’s most hated story was ‘The Little Mermaid’. She preferred the boundless ocean and couldn’t understand why the Little Mermaid would fall for the fleeting fireworks on the horizon. Her father set off fireworks for her every year, so she took them for granted, unable to grasp why the Little Mermaid was so shaken and obsessed by them.
The year I first met Zhang Mingsheng was also the first time I saw such a grand display of fireworks. I was an adult, far less innocent than the Little Mermaid, but the moment the fireworks suddenly burst open, I admit my heart skipped a beat.
At that time, I had no idea what would happen later. How could I have known that Zhang Mingsheng was not a prince, but an evil sea demon? In moments of peak beauty and grandeur, one often wishes time itself would freeze, so that the magic of the present could be held onto and savored forever.
No one knew what Zhang Mingsheng had said to me, and I didn’t know if these fireworks had anything to do with me at all.
After all, as soon as the fireworks rose, people began speculating that this was a gift from Zhang Mingsheng to his grandfather; an intentional move to break the ice on this day.
But the next day, news of Zhang Mingsheng drag racing and setting off public-disturbing fireworks on the night of his grandfather’s birthday hit the entertainment headlines. The rumors of him trying to please his grandfather were instantly debunked.
Refusing to attend the birthday banquet only to go off and set the sky ablaze; one couldn’t tell whether he was truly wishing his grandfather longevity, or secretly hoping his life would end like the sunset fireworks: brief, brilliant, and extinguished in an early return to the cycle of rebirth.
Paparazzi even managed to capture a short clip of video which, accompanied by exaggerated commentary, played on a loop on gossip channels. They said that chasing Zhang Mingsheng was like chasing a professional race car driver. It was thrilling, dangerous, and likely to get you killed in the line of duty at any moment.
In the video, Zhang Mingsheng was driving a blood-red Ferrari through the mountain curves like a streak of crimson light. The lens caught a glimpse of his profile; it had sharp features and a high bridge of the nose. His clothes were very familiar. I sat in the office, staring at the screen, watching it over and over again.
He went drag racing wearing my jacket.
He was also wearing my jacket in the newspaper photo. A jacket bought from a clearance sale at a hypermarket.
A strange sensation suddenly welled up inside my chest. It was like a winding stream flowing silently, yet the moment I focused my mind, I could hear its murmuring sound.
Possessed by some inexplicable urge, I clipped that photo of Zhang Mingsheng from the newspaper.
I now possessed a photo of Zhang Mingsheng, yet that photo of Li Yi and me never arrived in the mail. Perhaps the boy thought Li Yi was joking with him, or perhaps he simply didn’t want to give it to us anymore.
I didn’t give it much thought, and Li Yi gradually forgot about it too.
A week later, I received a package.
I opened it and found a watch; it was Zhang Mingsheng’s watch.
Attached with it was a note with scrawled handwriting.
As I read it, Zhang Mingsheng’s voice echoed in my mind.
Zhang Mingsheng wrote: This is a gift, not a lost item. As a police officer, one must strictly observe the time; therefore, I give this to Mr. Yu. No need to return it again.
