“Let me try,” I said.
“You?” He looked doubtful.
“I’ve built this model before. If it doesn’t turn out well, I’ll compensate you with a new one.”
“Alright then.”
I took the model home and spent three weeks meticulously assembling it. Only when I was working on the model did I feel like Gao Hai Ming was beside me. If I made a mistake, I imagined him pointing it out.
Building the model helped me momentarily forget my loneliness. I didn’t want to disappoint the woman who promised her boyfriend a model each year. Since Gao Hai Ming built the first two, I felt like completing the third was a collaboration between him and me. He said his models symbolized love, while mine symbolized guilt. Would he ever know?
“This is quite good,” the shop owner said, examining my completed model.
“Of course! My teacher was Gao Hai Ming,” I said.
“If his models were worth 100 points, yours would score 75. But it’s good enough for the customer. I’ll call her to pick it up.”
I looked at the F-4S Phantom II, reluctant to part with it.
At the start of the new year, I was promoted, with a 30% salary increase.
“You’ve been performing very well,” Fang Yuan said.
That was because I had nothing else to focus on but work.
“Gao Hai Ming is an odd person,” Fang Yuan remarked.
Looking at the F-15 fighter jet he had built, I replied, “He’s cruel.”
During Lunar New Year, Meng Meng performed in Vancouver. Two days after her arrival, she called me.
“I saw someone who looked just like Gao Hai Ming,” she said.
“Where did you see him?” I asked eagerly.
“At a supermarket on Hornby Street in the city center. I was shopping this morning and saw a Chinese man who looked just like him, but when I tried to follow him, he was gone.”
“Are you sure it was him?”
“I can’t be 100% certain.”
Could it be that Gao Hai Ming had been hiding in Vancouver all this time?
Then, on the tenth day of the Lunar New Year, something happened.
When I saw the news on TV, I could hardly believe it.
Hu Tie Han had been shot twice and was critically injured.
That evening, Tie Han was off duty and had arranged to meet me and Yu De Ren for dinner in Causeway Bay. Yu De Ren and I waited for two hours at the restaurant, but he didn’t show up. We assumed he had been called to handle a major case at the last minute.
When I returned home, I saw the news report. Bloodied and unconscious, Tie Han was being carried onto an ambulance. His left hand hung limply off the stretcher, still wearing the red string on his wrist.
According to the report, two patrol officers in Central had stopped a suspicious man, who resisted. The man suddenly pulled out a gun and opened fire, leading to a shootout. The suspect took a female bystander hostage and forced her into a taxi. Tie Han had coincidentally entered the taxi from the opposite door, likely on his way to meet us.
Unarmed and off-duty, Tie Han was taken hostage in the taxi. The suspect ordered the driver to head toward Ocean Park. The taxi was stopped at a police roadblock near the park, leading to another shootout. The taxi driver and the female hostage managed to escape, but Tie Han was shot twice during a struggle with the suspect inside the car. At the time, it was unclear whether the bullets that hit him came from the suspect or the police.
Yu De Ren and I rushed to the hospital, but his injuries were too severe. Despite the doctors’ efforts, he was pronounced dead. Yu De Ren and I clung to each other, sobbing uncontrollably. Tie Han’s father, also a police officer, sat on the ground, weeping.
It took all my strength to muster the courage to call Meng Meng, who was still performing in Vancouver.
She was still asleep when she answered.
“What’s wrong?” she asked groggily.
I told her.
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