A day ago, an anonymous individual tipped off the police about a bomb planted on Cameron Road, Tsim Sha Tsui. A week ago, scaffolding was put up next to an apartment close to the scene of the incident for maintenance purposes. Three weeks earlier, someone found out that a particular pair of mother and daughter would pass by this area every morning, always bringing with them a hot flask of congee for breakfast. Ten weeks ago, someone observed that the lady owner of a particular shop would always pray with joss sticks in the morning.
This was an accident.
Memories of all these preparations flashed through the teenager’s mind as he ran across two streets. A new coat, new shoes and a new hat had already been prepared for him when he ran past Nathan Road. When he raced down the alleyway of Humphreys Avenue, his pants had been swapped out for sweatpants and he was now wearing a pair of glasses.
When he arrived at Peking Road, the envelope in his hand was gone, replaced with a couple of flyers. The teenager regulated his breathing and slowly walked down into a pedestrian tunnel. He brushed off flakes of dry glue from his fingertips as he glanced at the documents in his grasp.
The young boy had only just skimmed the first few words of the documents when he felt his brain seize up. His breath turned heavy and that earlier sense of unease shrouded his heart again like a thick, heavy blanket of smoke.
A few large characters were written on the piece of paper in strong, uninterrupted strokes: “The Back-push Sketches: Sketch 188”.
The teenager was stunned. The Back-push Sketches. How could it be? He had heard about them from his adoptive father.
Uneasy is the head that wears the crown. Emperors across ages dream of ruling the world and when they finally have it within their grasp, they would live in perpetual fear of losing it. The Back-push Sketches was the most famous book of prophecies in China. Legend says that it was written by the mystics Li Chunfeng and Yuan Tiangang, on orders of Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty. Every prophecy was accompanied by an ink brush painting, meant to predict the fate of the dynasty.
However, Li Chunfeng was swept into the process and ended up prophesying over two thousand years of China’s future. The effort exhausted him and brought him to the brink of death. Alas, Yuan Tiangang, his partner, said to him: “The branches of fate fork and reach ever with no end; better to drop the brush and walk away,” as he pushed him lightly on the back. He finally stopped then.
The Back-push Sketches circulated for many years, with various inconsistencies between all its manuscript copies. There was even a copy containing sixty-seven sketches circulating at one point during the Qing Dynasty. Thus, though it was unknown if there was a real copy of the Sketches, there were definitely counterfeits out there! Most people believed the manuscript copied by Jin Shengtan during the reign of Emperor Qianlong to be a genuine copy. The manuscript contained a total of sixty sketches and was currently held in the National Palace Museum of Taiwan.
The teenager hastily took a better look at the document. A sketch was drawn on the left side of the paper, depicting a man in armour with a skirt around his waist. The man was handing over three feathers to a red pheasant. On the right it was written:
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The Prophecy:
The brilliant steeds frolic, the sleeves they dance;
For ten fives they remain, for better and for worse.
The Song:
For a hundred and fifty, a feather borrowed;
‘fore the millennium, a promise of dragon and lion broken.
One beast two heads, a stratagem fruitless and failed;
The goose across the western seas, the ants across the valley.
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“This is the one hundred and eighty-eighth sketch? Aren’t there only sixty sketches?”
The teenager was utterly bewildered. He could feel how old the papers were the moment he touched them. Put that together with these words and he couldn’t help but wonder if these were truly part of the Back-push Sketches.
He quickly pulled up the next piece of paper. It was the 231st sketch. A bat flying across the skies, the ground littered with corpses. To the right:
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The Prophecy:
Millennium and three, sharks upon the fishing grounds;
A man of staff and snake, the bells of death and plague he sounds.802Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYh8dSukAVN
The Song:
Do not bemoan the heavens nor the crooks,
The sharks are past the reef,
Thousands stand upon the precipice,
And yet the rest, they fight over vinegar jars.
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“What is going on? Where are the trade secrets?”
The teenager tried to remain calm, but this was the first time he looked as surprised as he was. Nothing like this had ever happened in all his fourteen years. A passer-by saw the boy shouting in the tunnel and mistook him for a crazy person. They hastily left with their kid in tow. The kid was holding a balloon, whose string unexpectedly and suddenly snapped. The balloon, now unattached, floated up in front of a security camera.
The teenager’s hands were trembling now, but he forced himself to move on to the next piece of paper. Sketch 220. A pair of weighing scales rested above a harbour. Five stars weighed on the left scale, while dozens of smaller stars weighed on the right. The scales were leaning right.
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The Prophecy:
Remnant sins three and seven shatter the foundations.
Force not the matter; a green hound for a scapegoat.
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The Song:
Dust in the central plains; no insects to be seen.
No room for two in one world; one must leave.
A match made in heaven closed in blood.
Three coins for hair and white.
A butterfly wing beats; a storm rages.
A bustling city; carts rolling to a stop.
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“Wait a minute, why does this harbour look so much like Victoria Harbor? Do these sketches have something to do with Hong Kong?”
The teenager was very smart. He immediately came to a conclusion after a quick moment’s reflection. He felt a cold run through his spine and flow through his blood. There was no doubt—his sixth sense was telling him that these papers were definitely not part of the Back-push Sketches.
A dangerous feeling flashed in his heart and the boy immediately took off and started running down the tunnel. He became aware of a terrible possibility—this was all a trap! Someone had used him to steal something extremely important. He knew that someone was very likely to snipe him the very next moment.
“Boss, what’s going on?” Tsz heard her young boss shouting and yelling and became very worried. Especially since he had saved her so many times, she had a duty to protect him as best as she could.
“Run, Tsz! Get away from there! Something’s wrong!” the teenager screamed into the microphone, but there was no reply, only a horrible scream. She didn’t even get a last word in.
“Heh…”
An odd laughter caught the teenager’s attraction. He looked around and saw a clown standing by his side. His makeup was unnerving and eerie and his smile sent shivers down one’s back.
“Hi, I am JOKER. Nice to meet you.”
The clown’s voice was hoarse and his tone was chilling. His teeth were yellow and brown. He pressed closer to the teenager, waving his hands as he did so. A pack of cards appeared in his hand with a turn of his wrist and he started shuffling and flourishing the cards in front of the boy.
“Who are you?”
The teenager remained extremely calm as he observed every movement and every glance taken by the clown. He was certain that this was an unflinching killer who stood before him. In fact, his entire crew was probably dead now. His own life could be forfeit if he wasn’t careful. The clown was still flashing his eerie smile at him. The teenager knew the importance of initiative in a battle. He channelled internal force to his palm and sprung forward, striking at the clown before he could reply.
The teenager had his eye on the clown’s throat. Still as water, strike like lightning! He was going for the kill. However, the clown looked at him as if he was prey that had fallen into a trap. A voice rang by the boy’s ear. “S3, confirmed.”
“Headshot, shoot to kill.”
Bang.
The boy’s head swerved to the right to the sound of the gunshot. His eyes lost focus and his body crumpled slowly to the ground, blood flowing without stop. His body started to turn cold with the loss of blood and the clown’s silhouette became increasingly blurry. Suddenly, images began to flash before his eyes like a revolving lantern, or perhaps, a movie played at 12x speed.
The movie consisted of every image in his fourteen years of life—the bantering with Tsz, the unfeeling lack of remorse at killing, the excitement of a successful plan, the guilt of murdering an innocent…
The teenager had heard of a certain profession in the past; something called a shadowcutter. Shadowcutters lived in the Underworld, and their job was to cut up a person’s life into individual still images to be flashed before their eyes as they die. It was to let them see their entire lives play out within moments, such that they could leave the mortal realm with no regrets. The teenager smiled. So shadowcutters did exist. It was a shame he couldn’t tell anyone else about this.
The clown picked up the sketches laying by the boy’s side. He stared at the boy’s corpse as he sneered, “I am the unexpected accident of your unexpected accident. I can’t steal these, but you can. So I’ll just take them from you. Haha.”
The clown walked away slowly, humming a little song as he did so.
“Ice cold and dripping gentle yellow is the bitter smile of foggy lights…”
Only the teenager’s body was left on the scene, along with a playing card whose extremely sharp edge was buried into the ground. The fifty-third card of a deck.
The clown was gone. A pedestrian walked by and discovered the teenager’s corpse. They shouted for help and called the police as they took off their coat and covered the body. He patted the boy on his face, hoping he didn’t lose the last of his consciousness. However, no matter how he cried out loud, the movement slowly faded from the teenager’s chest. His tightly gripped fist gradually relaxed.
Whatever. He didn’t have many attachments left to this world anymore. His adoptive father was dead and now Tsz was gone as well. It was an accident after all. He could not have seen it coming and there was nothing he could have done about it.
“I can finally rest now.”
The teenager had no regrets. He had no opportunity to regret now anyways. He remembered something somebody once said: “Most people are already dead by the time they’re twenty-five. They just aren’t buried until they’re seventy.” He felt like he finally understood this saying a little better now.
Sometimes the teenager really wanted to ask if there was God, someone who controlled everything in the world with his invisible hands.
The teenager’s blood slowly flowed towards his right hand. When the blood reached the ring, it started to flow into its patterned indentations, as if gravity no longer worked. As more and more blood flowed into its grooves, the ring started to turn into a bright, eerie shade of crimson. Waves of blinding red light emanated from the jewellery. No one could see it, however, as it was covered under the coat.
Suddenly, a dark cloud appeared above the tunnel with no prior indication. Deafening thunder rumbled, frightening everyone nearby.
However, the glowing red light faded with the thunder. Another unexpected accident had been put into motion.802Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡu8Tor10Aqe
