There are no words to express my feelings. The sorrow, heavy like a stone, has blocked my expression. How can I tell you how I am? I know how you are. Knowing full well how you are, I am dying. The crime that my father has committed is killing me inside. I am desperately looking for a way out. I will definitely find a way. No one can take you away from me. No one. Just don’t say that you want to go to China. Without you, how can I live? Can anyone live if his soul is taken away from him?

Tears rolled down Mei Lin’s cheeks. The alphabets became hazy.

‘Why are you crying, ache? Is Pulok dada angry with you?’

‘No. He isn’t.’

‘Then why are you crying? Don’t cry. Come, let us go and listen to grandpa’s stories. You’ll feel better.’

‘I can’t, Yiu Yi. You go.’

Yiu Yi wiped Mei Lin’s tears and left, carrying her doll with her.

Rounding up the children loitering around, Yiu Yi’s grandpa brought them inside Ameng’s dormitory and started telling them a story.

‘Many years ago in China, there lived a dragon king. He was the rain god and lived in a river. He had a close friend. One day, the dragon king made a bet that he would stop the rains for an hour and decrease the rainfall to one-tenth the usual amount, if he so wished. And so there was scanty rainfall that year. The officers of the emperor came to know that it was the dragon king who was responsible for the lack of rains. They informed the emperor. The emperor decided to try him in court. The dragon king was found guilty and condemned to death. The emperor ordered him to be executed three days later at three o’clock.

That night, the dragon king came to the emperor in his dream and told him the real story and asked for pardon. The emperor gave him his word that at the appointed time of execution he would keep the officer inside the palace.’

‘Why?’ asked the children.

‘Because the officer could perform the execution only if he could go out,’ Yiu Yi’s grandfather explained.

‘The emperor called the officer on the day of the execution and expressed his wish to play Mahjong with him so the officer would not be able to go out. And just before three o’clock the officer fell asleep on the Mahjong board. The emperor thought that the dragon king was saved. But –’

‘But?’

The children looked at Yiu Yi’s grandpa, eyex transfixed on his face.

‘But the dragon king had already been executed at the appointed time! Because in his dream, the officer had gone and beheaded the dragon king.’

‘Oh!’

‘Then what happened?’