The morning of the ferry ride to Lamma Island dawned grey and heavy, the sky a sheet of damp, unbroken cloud that promised rain but hadn't yet committed. It suited Kai's mood perfectly. He dressed with a slow, deliberate care—dark jeans, a plain black t-shirt, a lightweight windbreaker. Functional, anonymous clothing. He checked his reflection in the small, cracked mirror nailed to the wall. The face that looked back was Jin Kai's. The eyes were a little harder, the set of the jaw a little tighter. The ghost was settling in.
Lok was still asleep, snoring softly. Kai didn't wake him. He scribbled a note on a scrap of paper—"Back tonight. Hold the fort."—and left it on the rickety table. The silence in the room felt sacred, a last moment of peace before the storm he was sailing into.
The MTR to Central was crowded with the morning rush. He stood, holding a strap, surrounded by the bleary-eyed faces of office workers, students, and shop clerks. He studied them, these ordinary people with ordinary problems. A man arguing quietly on his phone about a missed delivery. A woman meticulously applying lipstick using her phone's camera. They were living in a different city, a parallel Hong Kong where the biggest crisis was a late train or a forgotten lunch. He felt a vast, unbridgeable distance between himself and them. He was an imposter here, a wolf in sheep's clothing, his mind already on a remote island and the terrible task that awaited him.
The ferry to Lamma was a different world. The frantic energy of Central gave way to the lazy, lapping waves of the harbour. He took a seat on the open upper deck, the damp air cool on his face. As the city's iconic skyline receded, it felt like he was leaving more than just geography behind. He was leaving the last vestiges of Kai Jin, the police officer, on that shore.
The trip was short. Lamma Island emerged from the haze, a lush, green mound of hills dotted with villages. The ferry docked at Yung Shue Wan, the main village, a laid-back collection of low-rise buildings, seafood restaurants, and bicycle rentals. It was quiet, almost sleepy. A world away from the relentless pressure-cooker of Kowloon.
He had a name and a general location from Wong: Chan, a fisherman, with a small warehouse near the power station at the island's southern end. He started walking, following the paved path that led away from the village. The path wound along the coast, past small beaches and traditional villages. The air smelled of salt and vegetation. It was beautiful, a peace that felt like a cruel joke.
His mind wasn't on the scenery. It was running through scenarios, possibilities, and dead ends. He had to assume Chan would be uncooperative. He had to assume it would come to violence. The order was clear: Permanently. But how? His police training screamed at him to find another way. Could he stage an accident? Fake Chan's death? The logistical hurdles were immense. He had no resources, no support. He was one man, on an island, with a target on his back and a gun he dared not use for fear of the ballistic report linking it back to a police armoury.
He reached the power station's massive, humming structures, their industrial presence a stark contrast to the island's natural beauty. Beyond them, tucked away in a small, rocky cove, was a cluster of weathered wooden structures—a jetty, a boat shed, and a larger building that looked like a warehouse. This had to be it.
He didn't approach directly. Instead, he found a vantage point on a higher part of the path, partially concealed by scrubby bushes. He sat there for a long time, watching. This was surveillance. This was police work. The familiarity of the action was a small, painful comfort.
After about twenty minutes, an older man emerged from the warehouse. He was short and stocky, his skin tanned to leather by a lifetime of sun and saltwater. He moved with the rolling gait of a sailor, carrying a bucket of fish scraps which he dumped off the end of the jetty before sitting on an upturned crate to smoke a cigarette. This was Chan. He didn't look like a criminal. He looked like a tired old man who worked with his hands.
Kai watched him. He saw the way Chan rubbed a sore knee, the way he stared out at the water, his shoulders slumped not in fear, but in what looked like resignation. This wasn't a greedy man who had squandered triad money. This was a man who was probably in over his head, a small-time operator who had made a deal with the devil and couldn't keep up the payments.
The cold, professional part of Kai's mind, the part that had excelled at the academy, began assembling a profile. Isolated location. Single occupant, as far as he could tell. No visible security. The method would need to be quiet, close-quarters. No gun. His mind supplied the options with a chilling detachment: a garrote, a knife, blunt force trauma, drowning. Each one more intimate and horrifying than the last.
But the other part of him, the human part that had reconnected with Lok, that felt sickened by the envelope of cash, recoiled. This wasn't a faceless target in a briefing file. This was a man with a sore knee who liked to smoke in peace by the water.
As he watched, another figure appeared from the path—a young boy, no more than seven or eight, carrying a school backpack. He ran towards Chan, shouting, "Grandpa!"
Chan's face, which had been a mask of weary contemplation, broke into a radiant smile. He stood up, opening his arms, and the boy crashed into him, chattering excitedly about his day at school. Chan ruffled his hair, took the heavy backpack from him, and listened with a fond patience.
Kai felt the breath freeze in his lungs. The world seemed to tilt on its axis. A grandson.
Mister Wong hadn't mentioned a family. Of course he hadn't. To Wong, they were irrelevant details, complications in the ledger. But to Kai, they changed everything. This wasn't just about ending a life. It was about shattering another one, an innocent one. It was about creating a ghost for that boy to carry, just as Kai carried the ghost of his own past.
The cold, professional calculus he had been relying on shattered. The neat boxes of "mission" and "target" exploded. He stayed in his hiding spot, paralyzed, as Chan picked up the boy, slung the backpack over his own shoulder, and walked with him back towards the village, their figures growing smaller on the winding path.
The warehouse was deserted now. The cove was silent, save for the gentle lap of water against the pilings. Kai remained where he was, the weight of the impending confrontation now multiplied a thousandfold. He had come to Lamma to decide if he could kill a man. Now he had to decide if he could make a boy an orphan. The ghost wasn't just being asked to claim a soul; he was being asked to destroy a future. And as the first drops of rain began to fall from the leaden sky, he had no idea what he was going to do.