Ma Wai-lam arrived at the address Yanting had given her—a rundown teahouse in the bowels of Sham Shui Po, where the fluorescent lights flickered like dying fireflies and the linoleum floors were stained with decades of spilled tea. She found him hunched over a corner table, nursing a cup of lukewarm pu'er, his eyes shadowed by the hollows of two sleepless nights. The moment she sat down, she slid a manila folder across the sticky tabletop and said, "You're going to want to see this before you say anything."
Yanting opened the folder and scanned its contents. Personnel records, transfer logs, and a handwritten note from a retired detective who had been Ma's mentor during her first year on the force. The note was dated three weeks ago and bore a single, damning sentence: "If you're looking for a ghost in the Western District, start with the man who was never promoted."
"Superintendent Kong," Yanting said, the name tasting like ash.
Ma nodded grimly. "Kong Wai-on joined the force in 1982. He spent his first decade in the Commercial Crime Bureau, working on corporate fraud cases. In 1992, he was assigned to the investigation of Prosperity Weaving's bankruptcy—the same case you asked me about. The case was closed after three months with no charges filed. Kong was transferred to the Western District a week later, and he's been there ever since. No promotions, no commendations, no disciplinary actions. He just... stayed."
Yanting's mind raced. "That's not normal. A decade without advancement in a force that promotes by seniority? He would have had to actively avoid it."
"Or someone made sure he stayed put," Ma replied, her voice dropping to a near-whisper. "I checked the bank records of his wife—she runs a small jewellery shop in Causeway Bay. In 1993, her business received a series of deposits that didn't match her sales volume. The deposits came from a holding company that was later dissolved, but the trail leads back to one of the property developers whose name appears in the Prosperity Weaving files. The same developer whose nephew turned up dead in 1995—the one in Chan's archive."
Yanting closed the folder and pressed his palms against his eyes, trying to compress the chaos into something coherent. Kong had been the one to approve his undercover assignment. Kong had been the one to brief him on the case, to feed him information, to guide his moves. If Kong was the insider, then every step Yanting had taken had been visible, predictable, controlled.
"He knew I was coming," Yanting said, his voice hollow. "He picked me for the undercover role because he knew I was the one most likely to find the truth—and most likely to walk into a trap."
Ma reached across the table and gripped his wrist. "We can't prove any of this yet. The deposits are circumstantial, the personnel record is suspicious but not criminal. If we move too fast, we'll tip him off and he'll destroy the evidence. We need to be patient."
"We don't have time for patience," Yanting shot back, his voice sharper than intended. "The Ferryman is moving in three days. If Kong is running the show, he's already planning the next victim—and he's probably planning to make it me or Chan Do."
Ma's grip tightened. "Then we need to make a move that he can't anticipate. Something outside the official channels, something that doesn't go through the station at all."
Yanting looked at her, and for the first time in days, he felt a spark of something like hope. "I have an idea. But you're not going to like it."
"Try me."
He leaned forward, lowering his voice to a murmur that barely crossed the table. "We stage a betrayal. I let Kong believe that you've turned against me—that you're feeding him information about my movements, that you've become his asset. He'll think he has two moles in his operation, one on the inside and one on the outside. The arrogance will make him sloppy."
Ma's eyes widened, then narrowed with reluctant admiration. "You want me to play double-agent. Pretend to sell you out to your own boss."
"Not just pretend," Yanting said. "I need you to actually feed him something—a small piece of truth that will hurt but not destroy. Enough to make him trust you. And then, when the Ferryman makes his move, we'll have a window—a few hours, maybe less—when Kong thinks he's in control. That's when we strike."
Ma sat back, her expression unreadable. The teahouse buzzed around them, a low hum of steam and murmured Cantonese, indifferent to the conspiracy unfolding in their corner.
"If I do this," she said slowly, "I'm putting my entire career on the line. If Kong finds out I'm playing him, he'll bury me so deep I'll never see daylight again."
"I know," Yanting said. "And I'll spend the rest of my life making it up to you."
Ma laughed—a short, bitter sound. "You owe me more than a promise, Yanting. You owe me the truth. The whole truth. About what's really going on between you and Chan Do."
Yanting felt his stomach lurch. He had been waiting for this question, dreading it, rehearsing a dozen evasions that all sounded hollow in his head. But Ma was not the kind of person you could lie to and walk away clean. She had earned the right to know.
"He's not the Ferryman," Yanting said, each word measured. "He's the son of the man who started all of this—the bankruptcy, the suicides, the chain of deaths. He's been hunting the Ferryman for years, and he's been left clues. The Ferryman wants him to find the final crossing, and he wants me to come along."
"And you trust him?"
The question hung in the air like a blade. Yanting opened his mouth to say yes, because trust was the only currency that mattered in this game. But what came out was something rawer, more honest.
"I don't know if I trust him," he admitted. "But I feel something for him that I don't understand. It's not just the case, Ma. It's—" He stopped, struggling to find words that would not sound absurd. "It's like looking into a mirror and seeing the reflection move on its own."
Ma studied him for a long moment, then sighed. "You're in over your head. Way over. And I'm going to follow you anyway, because that's what partners do. But if he breaks your heart, I'll break his legs."
Yanting managed a weak smile. "That's fair."
They spent the next hour planning. Ma would plant a dossier in Kong's office, one that appeared to be a confidential report from a "source" (herself) detailing Yanting's alleged romantic involvement with a suspect. It would be just enough to make Kong believe Ma was disloyal to her partner—and just enough to make him underestimate both of them. Simultaneously, Yanting would accelerate his timeline, reaching out to Chan Do to move the crossing up by a full day, forcing the Ferryman to react before he was fully prepared.
When they parted at the teahouse's entrance, the afternoon sun was blinding, bouncing off the glass facades of newer buildings that crowded the old neighbourhood. Ma turned back once, her silhouette framed against the glare, and said, "Yanting. If this goes sideways—if you don't come back from that crossing—I'll hunt down every single person involved, no matter how long it takes. You understand?"
He nodded. "I wouldn't expect anything less."
She walked away, and he watched her go until she disappeared into the crowd, a small, fierce figure swallowed by the city's endless appetite. Then he pulled out his phone and dialled Chan Do's number—the one he had memorized from the archives room.
Chan answered on the first ring. "I was wondering when you would call."
"We need to move sooner," Yanting said, his voice clipped. "The insider is Kong Wai-on. He knows everything, and he's feeding it to the Ferryman. If we wait until the full moon, we'll be walking into a prepared ambush."
There was a pause on the other end, the silence punctuated by a faint hum of what sounded like a ferry's engine in the background. Chan was on the water—of course he was.
"I can get the Ferryman to meet us tomorrow night," Chan said finally. "There's a location he's used before, a dry dock near the old naval yard on Tsing Yi. It's isolated, no cameras, no patrols. But once we're there, there's no escape route. We'll be committing to the crossing."
"Then commit," Yanting said. "I'll be there."
"Alone?"
The question was pointed, loaded with implications. Yanting understood what Chan was really asking: Are you bringing the police with you? Are you still playing a role?
"Just you and me," Yanting replied. "And whatever the Ferryman brings with him."
Chan's voice softened, losing its edge of suspicion. "Tomorrow night. Midnight. The old dry dock. I'll send you the coordinates." A pause, and then: "Yanting. I want you to know—whatever happens tomorrow, I'm grateful that you chose to trust me. I know it wasn't easy."
Yanting closed his eyes, feeling the weight of those words settle on his chest. "It wasn't," he admitted. "But neither is chasing ghosts alone."
He hung up and stood in the middle of the sidewalk, surrounded by a river of pedestrians who had no idea that a man's life was being gambled on a phone call. The city continued its indifferent pulse, trams clattering, hawkers shouting, the eternal hum of commerce and survival. But Yanting felt removed from it all, suspended in a bubble of his own making, waiting for the moment when the bubble would burst.
He spent the afternoon in his apartment, making preparations. He left his mobile phone behind, taking only a burner unit with a single pre-programmed number. He left his badge, his wallet, and anything else that could be traced. He stuffed his pockets with the essentials—a flashlight, a roll of tape, a small knife, and the ferry coin from the Western Market. The coin felt warm against his thigh, as if it were alive, as if it were whispering secrets only he could hear.
By nightfall, he was ready. He lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling, and let his mind drift to Chan Do—the curve of his smile, the tremor in his voice when he spoke of his father, the way his fingers had lingered on Yanting's wrist in the noodle shop. It was madness, this attachment. It was unprofessional, dangerous, and possibly a trap in itself. But it was also the most real thing Yanting had felt in years.
He slept for three hours, dreamlessly, and woke to a grey dawn that promised rain. The day crawled by in a haze of tension, each hour an eternity. He ate nothing, drank only water, and reviewed the plan in his head a hundred times. At nine in the evening, he received a text on the burner phone: "Coordinates sent. Waiting for you. — C."
He pocketed the phone and left his apartment for the last time.
The journey to Tsing Yi took two hours by public transport—a bus, a ferry, and a long walk along a coastal road that was deserted at this hour. The dry dock loomed out of the darkness, a skeletal structure of rusted girders and concrete pylons, its massive gates hanging open like a jaw that had been frozen mid-sentence. The smell of salt and decay hung thick in the air.
Yanting approached cautiously, his footsteps echoing on the cracked pavement. The dry dock was empty of ships, its basin a shallow pool of stagnant water that reflected the half-moon overhead. At the far end, a single figure stood waiting, silhouetted against a backdrop of industrial wreckage.
It was Chan Do.
He turned as Yanting approached, his face illuminated by the pale moonlight. He was dressed in dark clothes, no jacket, his hands loose at his sides. He looked tired, vulnerable—a man who had been carrying a weight for too long.
"You came," Chan said, his voice barely above a whisper.
"I said I would."
They stood in silence for a moment, two hunters at the edge of a border that neither had crossed before. Then Chan reached into his pocket and pulled out something that glinted in the darkness—a bronze coin, identical to the one Yanting carried.
"He's coming," Chan said. "The Ferryman. I received a message an hour ago. He knows we're here. He's been waiting for us to stop running."
Yanting's hand instinctively went to the knife in his pocket. "Where is he?"
"I don't know. But he'll find us." Chan stepped closer, close enough that Yanting could see the pulse beating in his throat. "Before he does—I need to tell you something. Something I should have told you from the beginning."
Yanting felt a chill that had nothing to do with the sea breeze. "What?"
Chan opened his mouth to speak, but before any sound came out, a light blazed from the darkness above—a floodlight mounted on the dry dock's crane, turning the basin into a stage. And from the shadows, a voice echoed, amplified by the metal hulls of abandoned ships.
"Chan Do. Lin Yanting. I've been waiting for you both."
The Ferryman stepped into the light. He was older than Yanting had expected, his hair streaked with grey, his face etched with deep lines of grief and purpose. He wore a simple worker's coat, and in his hand, he held a length of rope—not a weapon, but a prop, a symbol of the crossings he had orchestrated for ten years.
He looked at Chan, and there was no malice in his gaze. Only a terrible, fatherly sadness.
"I'm sorry it had to end this way," the Ferryman said. "But you both need to understand—this was never about revenge. It was about justice. And now that you're here, you're going to help me finish it."
He raised the rope, and Yanting's world narrowed to a single, blinding point of light.
The dock groaned. The tide began to rise.
No comments yet. Be the first to comment!